recapping my running year

I honestly wouldn’t know how to eloquently recap my running year. I fell in love with trail running and ran my first trail race. I completed my first marathon in two years. I ran a number of smaller races and in the past month have dealt with a little injury that has sidelined my running a lot.

Mileage has been the lowest in 6 years. I think I barely ran a little over 500 miles, which is quite low considering I usually run anywhere from 700-1000 miles a year. However part of the mileage dip may be attributed to a lack of keeping track of my miles. Yep. I wouldn’t immediately write down how much I ran and before I knew it, a few weeks have passed and I can’t remember what I did on any given day. Oops. I definitely have some blank pages in my running journal. I’ll make that a goal for 2013. First, I need to get a new running
journal. Santa?

Since going to Portland and running their fabulous marathon, I ran the Rock ‘n’ Roll Los Angeles Halloween Half Marathon. It wasn’t actually on Halloween but what’s three days before it, right? I even wore a costume:

Showing the Halloween bling.

Ok not much of a costume. But since the San Francisco Giants had just won the World Series and their colors just happen to be orange and black, which are the official colors of Halloween (they are official, right?), then I was going to wear my beloved limited edition Will Clark signature SF Giants cap. I don’t think I’ve worn it since 1989 and once the race was over, it went back into retirement. Yes, before I fell in love with the Red Sox, I grew up as a Giants fan (sorry Dad). I still am (sorry Dad). I have enough love for both of them – the Red Sox are my American League team, the Giants are my National League team. When they play each other, I win. 🙂

Rock ‘n’ Roll Los Angeles Halloween Half Marathon race recap: The race was hotter than last
year. And my race time was slower than last year. Damn heat.

On Thanksgiving Day, I ran my second turkey trot ever. It was the same one I ran my first one with – the Burbank Turkey Trot.

This year, the course was changed up and made a little hillier. I was torn between the 5k
and 10k but decided on the 10k.

Burbank Turkey
Trot race recap: The race wasn’t as cold as last year. But my race time was
slower than last year. Damn hills.

About a week after
trotting with some turkeys, I started to feel a slight ache in my left hip. I
went out to run 14 miles with the Leggers on December 1st and I could feel the
ache start to intensify soon into the run. I decided to cut the run really short
because I didn’t want to make the situation worse by severely aggravating it
and potentially causing a major injury. Later that day, the ache turned into a
very uncomfortable pain that eventually reached around to my left side lower
back area. I didn’t run again for a week.

If it weren’t for the Santa Monica-Venice Christmas Run, I wouldn’t have run at all. I was so looking forward to this race because I had a blast at it last year and like last year, I was anticipating running both the 5k and 10k. But knowing the physical ailment I was dealing with, I decided to keep it to only one of the races. At first I was aiming for the 5k, but I really wanted to get done early so I opted for the 10k and took my time. I ran when I felt like it, but any ounce of discomfort, I walked. I took it so easy, that energy-wise I could’ve run another 3.1 miles. I’m glad I didn’t. I was ready for hot coffee.

Santa Monica-Venice Christmas Run race recap: The race was much colder than last
year. And I finished a good 12 minutes slower this year. Damn you injury. However, this race gets major brownie points for the awesome shirt, as always. 🙂

Since the Christmas run, I’ve run 3 miles. Since December 1st, I’ve run a total of 13.2 miles. I don’t even need to enter it into my running journal. I remember exactly. I actually feel a lot better though and hope to start up again this week. I don’t know if I’m totally healed and out of the woods but I’ve got to get going in preparation for the LA Marathon which happens to be in 12 short weeks. Oh yeah, I forgot. I signed up for the LA Marathon.